54 
THE NEW AFRICA 
Further up we found the river broaden out into vast swamps 
many miles wide, while the true river current winds its deep 
course through the palm-dotted islands, rising oasis-like out of 
the endless plain of reeds. 
This is the home of the buffalo, puku, letzwee, and many 
other kinds of buck, including the mysterious ‘ situtunga,’ who 
whiles away his life wallowing in the water like a seal, only 
visiting the river banks late in the evening and at night to cull 
the succulent choice grass growing in great abundance on this 
favoured spot. Of the situtunga, Serpa Pinto, the fantastic 
Portuguese explorer, writes that it is an aquatic animal specially 
gifted by Nature with blow-holes and breathing apparatus 
through the horns, the final orifice being at the tip. A charm¬ 
ing idea, but, alas for the accuracy of Pinto’s observation! not 
borne out by fact, since the heads we obtained only showed 
a stronger development of the nasal wings, enabling the beast 
to open and close the orifice at will like a seal, while the 
horns, a beautiful spiral, are effectively formed for defensive 
purposes like those of any other antelope, and are not weakened 
by any of Nature’s freaks, of which this surely would be the 
most inexplicable and the oddest. A conspicuous anatomical 
anomaly, however, is found in the formation of the feet of this 
buck, which are abnormally long and slightly webbed at the 
base of the toes. This configuration of their extremities, while 
excellently adapted for swimming purposes, deprives them of the 
prerogative of speed on land enjoyed by other antelopes. In fact 
their gait on land is a clumsy waddle, whereas amongst the 
floating tangled reeds they manage to find a support by point¬ 
ing the toes downwards, and getting a footing by resting on 
the reeds that slip into the fork of the toes as they go along, 
an advantage that enables them to traverse the dense masses 
of tangled reeds that lie floating over the deep water beneath. 
To me the mystery of this buck’s existence lies in the pos¬ 
sibility of its living in water teeming with crocodiles. The 
amicable relations between these must be of a lasting and 
binding nature, for any rupture would inevitably result in the 
